


Don't Say A Word

by denorios



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-11
Updated: 2010-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-10 12:17:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/denorios/pseuds/denorios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Words have never been necessary between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Say A Word

Vin Tanner has a reputation as a man of few words. He often wonders at this - in his own head he doesn't feel like a particularly quiet man. He talks when he needs to, when he wants to, when he has something that needs to be said. But words don't come as easily to him as they do to Ezra, who seems to say an awful lot sometimes without saying very much at all, and Vin feels like he only understands every seventh word that comes out of Ezra's mouth anyway; or Buck, who can sweet-talk anyone, man, woman or child, with just a few well-chosen honeyed words.

He mentions this to Chris once, and Chris just grins and tells him that at least it means he doesn't have to talk to people he doesn't want to.

Chris' own reputation has a similar effect. Vin still hears talk sometimes in the saloon of 'Black Larabee', a bad man, dangerous, a man you wouldn't cross. It makes him smile. Black Larabee, the man who drapes himself over Vin like a blanket at night and sleeps with his hand over Vin's heart, who sometimes wakes him up on the trail with a faceful of water from a canteen and then stands there laughing so hard Vin can't stay mad at him; the man who once sat by his bedside day and night for a week when he was delirious with fever, cooling his hot skin with damp cloths and slowly stroking the hair from his forehead; the man who'd risk swinging from a gallows to save Vin from the same fate, the man in whose hands Vin placed his life and his trust and his heart almost from the moment they met and who has never once given Vin a reason to regret that decision.

Reputations don't seem to mean all that much, it seems.

And the irony is, the only time Vin ever really lives up to his reputation is when he's with Chris. He's never needed words with Chris. A look is enough, a glance across the crowded saloon, a quick grin that leaves heat pooling in his belly and lower. Sometimes it's a touch, a firm grip on his forearm, a not-so-casual arm slung around his shoulders, the press of Chris' foot against his as they play poker, a hand on his thigh under the table. Chris can undo him without a single word needed, and he knows it too.

Vin wonders about that too sometimes, about this strange unspoken connection between them. It feels like a blessing, and not one he ever expected to find when he first rode into Four Corners. He wasn't looking for a home or a family, wasn't looking for a purpose in life or a place to belong, but he found them anyway, just by glancing across a dusty street into the eyes of a man in black.

Vin is not a fanciful man. He doesn't believe in signs or spirits, in Josiah's prayers or Chanu's medicine bundle. He appreciates both as gifts given from a generous heart, but he doesn't believe either will protect him. A prayer will not deter a bounty hunter, and a medicine bundle cannot stop a bullet. Vin believes in what he can see and feel - his horse moving beneath him, his gun strapped to his thigh, the dusty horizon ahead of him, and Chris' solid presence at his side. These things will protect him.

And yet something in him recognises that he has been given a gift beyond value in Chris and that something greater than either of them led him to this time, this place and this man. He's not a fanciful man; there were no crows cawing his fate when he rode into Four Corners for the first time, no portents in the sky; he didn't wake that day with a strange sense of destiny hanging over him. He walked out of the store, borrowed shotgun in hand, and Chris was waiting for him. It was as simple and as breathtaking as that.

What would Chris say, he thinks, if he just came out and said it, said 'Chris, you are home to me'. Would he smile or would he turn away? Chris doesn't want anyone to belong to him - he had that once, and it broke his heart to lose it. Vin wishes he could promise Chris that he'll never leave him like Sarah and Adam did, that no matter how hard Chris pushes he can't make Vin go, can't even make Vin turn his back. He wishes so hard he could promise these things, but there's a bounty and a hangman's noose standing between him and any oath he could swear.

What they have remains unspoken, must be unspoken. Sometimes Vin thinks Chris is like a wild horse, skittish and untamed. He has to approach him slowly, carefully, gently, never pushing, never pressing, and never ever making anything solid enough to put into words. Words have power, the native people believe, have a presence and a weight that hangs in the air long after the sound has faded. He knows the moment he makes what exists between them real by speaking the words that live in his heart is the moment it will all fall to dust, and Chris will be gone.

As long as nothing is said, as long as their connection exists solely in looks and touches and the air between them, it will last.

And it's enough, most of the time. When they rock together in Chris' one-room shack, when the air around them feels heated enough to blister, when Vin's lips and skin feel chapped and raw from Chris' stubble and there's a pleasurable ache low down he knows he'll feel for days, it's enough. When Chris curls up behind him, out on the range, under the stars, in his favoured position - one leg slipped between Vin's, one hand on his hip and the other on his heart, lips brushing Vin's ear gently - it's enough. It's more than enough, more than he ever dreamed possible.

But there are times when he thinks it will kill him to keep these words inside, when he aches to speak the words a wife can say to her husband, a sweetheart to his girl, one lover to another. Lying together at night, listening to Chris' soft exhales, fingers entwined, Vin can feel the words forming in his mouth and he has to bite his lip hard enough to draw blood to hold them back. In the morning Chris will touch the torn lip enquiringly, kiss it gently, and say nothing.

He knows. It's the only thing that makes the silence bearable sometimes. Chris knows. Whatever roils inside of Vin is inside of Chris too. What they have is the sweetest kind of denial, and Vin can see Chris silently begging him not to force the issue, not to confront him. Don't make me choose, he says. Don't make it real. As long as Chris can keep telling himself that it's just sex between friends, a physical reaction, a willing pair of hands and a warm body, he can keep his demons at bay. He doesn't have to be afraid of losing Vin; if Vin is just a warm bulk at his back at night, just a source of friction and heat, a friend and nothing more, he doesn't have to fear losing himself in losing Vin.

And yet Chris' every action belies the turbulent thoughts in his head. Vin knows Chris is telling himself over and over that it means nothing, and yet sometimes his hand trembles when he touches Vin. Sometimes Chris will pull the blankets and bedrolls out onto the porch and they will lie in the hot dark curled around one another, Chris' hand moving softly through Vin's hair as he falls asleep. Sometimes they spend hours in bed, exploring one another's bodies slowly, so slowly, touching and tasting every patch of skin until Vin feels like the tenderness between them is too much and he has to hide his face from Chris.

There is nothing about Vin that Chris doesn't know, and yet so much of Chris' life is still a mystery to him. Vin doesn't mind. Chris will tell him when he's ready, when he's finally let Sarah and Adam go. When he accepts that the guilt he carries about him like a cloud is not his to bear, when he accepts that it's okay to love again, that he's not betraying his wife and child; when Chris gets to that point Vin will be there.

What are words, after all, Vin thinks sometimes. They're just sounds in the air. If Chris doesn't want to hear them, then Vin doesn't need to speak them.

And when they're alone at night and Chris is shuddering beneath him, head thrown back, long neck exposed, their bodies moving as one, and the night seems to hold its breath around them, Vin gasps out Chris' name, over and over, and Chris responds. I know, I know. And it's enough.


End file.
